


not from the cold

by jack_inaboxx



Series: crack in the glass [19]
Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:49:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24562648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jack_inaboxx/pseuds/jack_inaboxx
Summary: He shivers.He shivers.He shivers.
Series: crack in the glass [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774129





	not from the cold

The first time he notices, he nearly flings himself out of his own skin in surprise. A moment later, he wishes deeply that he _had._

He is not supposed to bleed _gold_ , for all that he is not human. 

(She reassures him that it’s fine- she doesn’t bleed at all, after all- but he cannot stop panicking.)

(It only gets worse when he discovers that he cannot detect his heartbeat.)

For the next several hours, he loses his awareness of himself entirely. This is a blessing, he thinks, but then it occurs to him that possibly it _isn’t_.

When he becomes aware again, he is laying prone in the snow on top of a mountain he has never seen before. It takes him another hour to stop shaking long enough to move.

It is not from the cold. 

(And he hears screeching in the woods, sometimes, that was _not there before_ and he wonders what else will change under his feet)

It takes him a year to find his way back. 

He finds one of the Settlements burnt to the ground, hollowed, scorched ruins where there had once been a safe place. 

There are too many skeletons. One is too small to be an adult, and he- well, he tries very hard not to cough up the emptiness in his stomach. 

(He doesn’t need to eat, anymore. He doesn’t need to breathe either but that is a harder habit to break.)

Once the despair wears off, there is only a deep, shattered fury, the kind that fills you up with a fire and the sort of bloodlust that drives you mad with it if you are not careful. 

He was, perhaps, less careful than he should have been.

(The blood won’t come _off_ and the red blinds him and cuts him but gold is not the same and he cannot breathe)

(he does not need to breathe)

(The blood won’t come off, it won’t come _off_ -)

He shivers. 

It is not from the cold.


End file.
